New WSU President M. Roy Wilson will be a full professor with tenure. / Ryan Garza/DFP

Detroit Free Press Staff Writers

The new president of Wayne State University will get more than a half million dollars in compensation his first year in office.

Dr. M. Roy Wilson is to receive a base salary of $470,000 his first year, which is a 15% increase from the salary of current president Allan Gilmour. Wilson’s base salary will increase to $483,000 and then $497,000 in subsequent years.

In addition to his salary, Wilson, who assumes office Aug. 1, will get $75,000 a year in deferred compensation, up to 10% of his base salary toward a retirement account; $500 per month for a car, and a home on campus for personal use. Wilson’s five-year contract is from Aug 1 to July 31, 2018; if he’s still president on July 31, 2018, he gets a $50,000 bonus.

“I think the salary and compensation reflects what competitive institutions are paying for presidents” who have Wilson’s experience, Eugene Driker, a member of the board of governors, said Monday.

The details of Wilson’s compensation were detailed in a letter that Debbie Dingell, chair of the university’s Board of Governors, sent to Wilson earlier this month. The university released a copy of the letter on Monday.

Wilson will be the third highest-paid president of a public university in Michigan. The president of Michigan State University, Lou Anna Simon, has a base salary of $520,000, with $672,000 in total compensation. The president of the University of Michigan, Mary Sue Coleman, has a base salary of $603,357, with total compensation of more than $900,000, making her the sixth highest paid president of a public university in the U.S.

With about 29,000 students, Wayne State is the third largest university in Michigan. It has a medical school, law school, about 6,000 employees, a quarter of a billion dollar research portfolio and a budget of almost $1 billion a year, said Driker.

Being president of such a large research university “requires very sophisticated leadership,” Driker said. Wilson “brings exceptional skills to the job.”

In addition to being president, Wilson — who is an ophthalmologist — will be a full professor with tenure in the Department of Ophthalmology in the School of Medicine. As part of his contract, Wilson will get up to $20,000 a year to support his “professional activities and development in the field of ophthalmology,” the letter said.

Wilson is deputy director for strategic scientific planning and program coordination at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Wilson has been a professor at several universities.